On Juneteenth, Stephen and I took the train upstate to Beacon, New York, where a friend had invited us for lunch.
I was surprised by how crowded the train was.
We passed Cold Spring, which was one stop from Beacon.
When we exited the station, we were among throngs of people. Where was everyone going? I was worried that we were going to be swept away to a rock festival.
Our friend picked us up at the station, however, and soon we were drinking sangria and enjoying quiet views of the Hudson from her deck. For a few hours, it seemed like New York City was far away.
On the trip home, I remembered to sit next to the window facing the river.
We sped by the beautiful forest. Or limped by, given that the trains in this country don’t seem to go very fast anymore.
As someone who grew up in Pennsylvania during the Three Mile Island incident, I felt uneasy as we passed Indian Point, even though it’s been closed down.
It was nice to get back to Manhattan.
We passed under the High Bridge, where I regularly go running, and I succumbed to a specific kind of melancholy that arises when you’re in a train and you pass by the place where you want to be (home) on your way to a stop (at 125th Street) that is much farther away.
Sartre wrote a book called Huis Clos about this feeling.
